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S’pore branch of Chinese engineering firm acquitted of bribing LTA executive

2024-03-01 00:00:00.0 海峡时报-新加坡原网页

SINGAPORE – The Singapore branch of a Chinese engineering firm accused of bribing a Land Transport Authority (LTA) deputy group director was acquitted of all three of its graft charges on March 1 after a trial.

China Railway Tunnel Group (CRTG) Singapore Branch had been accused of giving $220,000 in 2018 and 2019 to Henry Foo Yung Thye, who is no longer with LTA.

The company, which was involved in tunnel and underground engineering work for MRT projects, was represented by lawyers Paul Loy, Chiam Yunxin and Adelle Yii from Wong Partnership.

Describing Foo as a “rogue senior LTA officer”, District Judge John Ng said in his judgment that Foo had obtained the monies from Xi Zhengbing and Zhou Zhonghe on three occasions to settle his gambling debts.

At the time of the offences, Xi was the general manager of the Singapore branch of CRTG while Zhou, who reported to him, was its commercial manager. Both men are no longer working for the firm.

Judge Ng said: “Xi was... not performing a delegated function of management in making the decision to accede to the corrupt requests for loans from Foo and in the giving of the corrupt gratification to the senior LTA officer.

“The corrupt acts were committed by Xi without authorisation from CRTG and $200,000 out of the $220,000 given to Foo as gratification were fraudulently obtained from CRTG.”

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During the trial, the prosecution had argued that CRTG had encouraged corrupt acts by senior employees with its system of rewards and penalties based on the outcomes of tenders.

The prosecution also said CRTG had flawed financial controls which allowed senior employees to use corporate funds for corrupt acts, and that its policies against corruption were not enforced effectively by members of its management.

The defence, however, said that Xi was neither “the living embodiment” nor “the directing mind and will” of CRTG.

Among other things, the defence also told the court that CRTG had maintained that the corrupt acts were done by Xi and Zhou for personal benefit and their acts could not be attributed to the company.

In his judgement, Judge Ng noted that Xi and Zhou had absconded from Singapore by Nov 21, 2019, but were later arrested in China.

In October 2023, Chinese state media reported that the pair had been handed prison terms and fines by a Chinese court for bribery.

For bribing foreign government staff and taking bribes, Xi received a five-year jail term and was fined 300,000 yuan (S$56,122).

Zhou was sentenced to two years behind bars and fined 100,000 yuan for bribing foreign government staff.

In September 2021, Foo, then 47, was sentenced to 5？ years’ jail in Singapore for taking about $1.24 million in bribes in the form of loans from contractors and subcontractors.

In earlier proceedings, the court heard that he had sought loans from parties including directors of firms such as Tiong Seng Contractors, Mept Engineering, Tritech Engineering & Testing, and CRTG’s Singapore branch.

In exchange, Foo promised to perform tasks such as advancing their business interests with LTA.

His offences came to light in October 2018, when the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau received an anonymous complaint that he had been soliciting loans from LTA subcontractors.